Art and Mental Health Links

Your weekly digest of a niche of this astounding Substack writing community and some elaboration, connections, and hopefully community-building

See this post if you aren’t sure what this roundup is all about.

Reminder: I draw connections between what the writers are sharing and my understanding of how that relates to art + mental health but this doesn’t mean that the original writer intended that or agrees with it in full or part … I always encourage you to go read the full pieces whose snippets capture your attention here to find out what the writer’s piece intends and offers.

Thoughts: When I use the term “mental health” I sometimes mean things with a diagnosis and symptoms but more often I just mean something akin to “how the challenges of life are affecting our thoughts and experiences.” But I’m thinking that maybe it’s time to switch back to just using the word “psychology” where I’ve been using “mental health.”

All images by Kathryn Vercillo from this week’s walks.

Grounding Us As We Begin

The piece I keep thinking about this week is from

Elin Petronella

of

Follow your gut

in What about the work you don’t see me do?

“it’s all the work we don’t see an artist do that really matters.

Because truthfully, an art piece doesn’t take just the time to realize it. There may be hours, weeks, months if not years of contemplation, reflection, research and perhaps even trials and errors before reaching a final result.”

From the past week or so then …

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Mental Health and Creative Process